.origins /

From www.savepolaroid.com

“On February 8, 2008 Polaroid Corporation announced that it will discontinue production of the instant film that made the company a household name. This site will document the aftermath of this announcement and will serve as a home-base for the effort to convince another company to take over and begin producing the cherished technology that Polaroid has abandoned.

Over the next few days and weeks we’ll be assembling articles, links, stories and planning out the best way to create a joint effort to save instant film.

One thing you can do to help get things started is upload your photo to the Save Polaroid flickr group.
Read the details here.”

Yet another casualty of the digital assault that has virtually conquered the world of film as we once new it, Polaroid has announced that they will discontinue the manufacture of the instant film that put the company on the map so many years ago.

“We’re trying to reinvent Polaroid so it lives on for the next 30 to 40 years,” Tom Beaudoin, Polaroid’s president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.

Instant Polaroid film will be on the shelves for the next year, after which Fujifilm will be the only company left making instant film.

A shame that they’ll never replace Type 55…

Above Photograph by Matt Bell, Using Type 55

Kodak has announced a new and improved version of its Tmax-400 film, claiming it to be the sharpest 400 speed film in the world. According to Kodak the emulsion has been altered to minimize light scatter, which reduces sharpness, and a UV layer has been added to medium-format and 35mm rolls to prevent accidental exposure to static inside the camera.

I’ve never been much of a Tmax user myself, but more important is the fact that Kodak has actually made an improvement to one of its black and white films. Granted this is nothing major, a change in the emulsion to improve grain structure and sharpness, but the effort is there none the less. Personally I hope this is not the beginning of a trend by Kodak. Something tells me if they start mucking around with the Tri-x emulsion, they’ll only screw things up.

Regardless, in a photography world dominated by digital, perhaps there is some hope for the purist that craves grain over pixels.

Source: http://www.popphoto.com/photonews/

(more…)

(more…)

Just thought that some of you out there still working with film might find this interesting. Maybe disappointing is a better word…

From Wireheadarts.com: “I noticed lately that a few films I was playing with were hard to find — most specifically EPT (Ektachrome 160T) and EPJ (Ektachrome 320T) — and dealers were mentioning that they thought it was discontinued. However, there wasn’t an announcement on Kodak’s site. Finally, I called Kodak and asked them.”

(more…)